Appropriately dubbed “Hollywood’s Winter Spring Break,” thousands of Angelenos et. al., head to Park City, Utah year after year to don their designer snow gear, watch a few films, and party righteously. This chilly celebresnownfilmfest is known as Sundance. It’s not exactly the place most people traditionally think of as a haven of environmental awareness…until now.

Yes, the Sundance Film Festival was willingly infiltrated by treehuggers this year, as Re:volve and Betterworld Books presented The Giving Suite. Not the title of a fledgling film, The Giving Suite was an exclusive 10-day boutique where eco-friendly companies that would potentially be giving away mountains (no pun intended) of schwag to Sundance-going celebrities, chose instead to sell it, with 100% of the profits going to one of seven charities. 100%? Yes, the borrowed slogan for the event was “Giving. It’s the new getting…” and give they did.

eConsciousMarket.com selected all the participating companies as well as providing an ecommerce platform for The Giving Suite goods to be sold year-round. eConsciousMarket.com stated that they “carefully selected brands that have proven their commitment to ecological and social responsibility… These manufacturers stand out in the field of environmental and social integrity.” Though there were a few brands that could have used some help communicating their environmental best practices more clearly, a majority of the companies represented were indeed stellar examples of sustainability. Lucky shoppers at The Giving Suite were able to pick up amazing finds like yummy recycled cashmere sweaters from Avita, snowboarding gear by Green Guru, Helen E. Riegle purses, and equipment by Fair Trade Sports.

Greenloop caught up with Pippa Sorley, Co-Founder of eConscious Market, to hear her thoughts on how The Giving Suite was an environmental success. Here’s what she had to say…

The event is close to zero-waste. We are working with a ‘green’ events production agency called Spitfire. All event operations offsets will be calculated (we will need to wait until all shipments have been returned) approx 2 weeks after closing day. Our carbon footprint will be offset through Native Energy.

My favorite part of this story is that we use only compostable cups and napkins; our high-end clothes are hung on corn-based plastic hangers; we have a recycling center in the space and based on an average of 300 people coming through the suite each day, we are emptying our “Landfill” labeled bin only once per day, versus 5-6 times a day for our recycled and compost bins.

Finally, we are so very proud of raising brand awareness around our eco vendors. Getting their product, philosophy and name in front of hundreds of people every day who might otherwise never have been introduced to companies such as Fair Trade Sports, Autonomie Project, and Esque Designs.

The biggest success to us, on a personal level, is the amount of money we have raised for our 7 featured Non-Profits. We estimate that by the end of tomorrow we will have raised between $15-$25K on their behalf. We of course will keep you posted when we determine the final numbers!

That’s all very exciting. The Giving Suite is indeed one more notch in the belt of greener commerce. I’m sure Robert Redford, lifelong environmentalist and founder of The Sundance Institute, would be extremely pleased to see his vision for a healthier environment make its way into yet another facet of his beloved festival. I know I am…